Oh the irony. Android is more open than iOS and yet its Google that EU found to be at fault with Android. How is this not a classic example that, if anything, Android provides a more open platform?
The latter is what Google got done for in the EU. You might think what Apple does is worse, and should be illegal, but that would be a separate hypothetical law.
Apple doesn't mandate any other company to change something with their product (Apple installs mail, calendar, music on their own iPhone, iPad, etc). They aren't using their market position to coerce another company to do something in Apple's favor. (as far as Android vs. iOS and the associated hardware phones and tablets).
If you only look for one thing they got in trouble for. Other things include prioritizing their shopping results on their search engine. There are cases and rulings that don't have anything to do with "coerce another company" wrt monopoly laws. You can be in trouble for only putting your own products on your own products too, no other company has to be involved...just have to be large enough (by volume).
https://stratechery.com/2018/the-european-commission-versus-...
You don't get Google Play Services without a lot of terms and conditions, and without it you can't really be a useful Android product short of trying to replace the whole store like Amazon does to questionable degrees.
The issue is that Google uses blatantly illegal terms to force bundling of various apps upon other manufacturers, and this is illegal in both the US and the EU and most other jurisdictions.
This is a business-to-business issue, not a business-to-consumer issue. Hence why Apple putting it's own software on it's own hardware is not similar. (Also, Apple is not even approaching being a monopoly, Google already is one.)
iOS is a closed platform, and Android is a more open platform, but that's 100% orthogonal to Apple or Google's _business practices_. Closed platforms are not illegal, while anticompetitive behaviour is.
Android on the other hand has a 74% share of smartphone market so anything they do impacts a majority of the market and could limit others access to the market.
And in iOS 12 any app will be able to provide a Siri shortcut.
This is a categorically false statement. I can point to a lot of places where Apple are doing quite a bit to prevent competition on their platform. I mean, browser engine choice is the easiest to see of dozens of ways Apple is doing something to prevent competition on their platform. Did you mean something else by your statement I do not understand?
Even if you mean "with their platform" vs "on their platform" as if users can go somewhere else, that's a far cry from "aren't doing anything" as they are in fact doing lots of things.
You want to be able to install another OS on an iPhone? Unless you happen to have an Android phone that has hardware that is supported by one of the forks - good luck with that.
Yes you can use scripting languages with iOS apps, games do it all of the time.
Alternate voip apps integrate well with the native iOS dialer. For instance a call using Skype looks just like a call on the native phone dialer and your Skype call history is integrated with your regular phone call history. You can even say call X using Y with Siri and it will use the alternate app - same with messages. If you use a third party VoIP app, and you’re connected to Bluetooth in your car, it uses the phone call Bluetooth protocol just like the native dialer.
Third party keyboard support has been available for 3 years and unlike Android, you can install a third party keyboard and not give it network access so you’re not installing a keylogger.
I was incorrect on the keyboard choice, but caveats about what the dialer can be used for or what system that you have to compile on remain. Again though, that's nitpicking here, they have restrictions on all sorts of places that will conveniently be ignored in responses (e.g. alternative installation methods) to make specific points. The general point stands, they actively stifle. To say they don't or that it's only 1 comes off as bias. To ask someone to list some examples to make the general, obvious point is a bit derailing.
What are the caveats with the dialer?
To ask someone to list some examples to make the general, obvious point is a bit derailing.
How is it "derailing" to ask you to give specifics and then systematically get them torn down?
That's Apple.
Google is more like the only lumberyard in the reasonable vicinity. But they'll only sell you lumber if you also buy nails, a hammer, paint, and pipe from them as well even though there are closer, cheaper, or better alternatives elsewhere for those. They're using their position to force others into deals they don't want to be in.
Only offering your software on your hardware isn't anticompetitive. It's the default for almost everything - your smart fridge isn't anticompetitive because you can't install a different web browser, your modem/router isn't anticompetitive because you can't switch to openwrt, your smart toothbrush isn't anticompetitive because you can't install custom firmware, et cetera.
What is anticompetitive on Google's end has absolutely nothing to do with the software, and everything to do with the licensing. Google have a couple simple rules that make their behaviour anticompetitive. If you want to ship an Android phone with google apps, then:
1) You may not ship any android phones without google apps 2) You may not ship a phone with google apps and a default search engine which is not Google
So, if you're a new manufacturer, Smasung, and you wish to make an Android phone, you have two choices:
1) Use Google Apps and immediately get an extremely mature operating system with a very large software library, but you may not compete with google. Not even that you may not use _that device_ to compete with google. You're not allowed to make any Android-based devices which compete, even if those themselves don't use google software.
2) Develop API-compatible replacements for everything in Google apps, or you can't access the android ecosystem because of how tightly integrated things are. Note, some of these APIs are not clearly documented and have mysterious behaviour. This option is thus only really available to megacorporations who can afford to sink a couple years of development into the project before selling a single device.
This is fundamentally different from what Apple is doing, which is simply selling a product.
I'd say that it has been upheld that only offering your software on your platform has been ruled as anticompetitive if you are large enough. Same with prioritizing your results on your platform, etc. Regardless of if that platform is hardware or any other restricted area with a majority presence.
> your smart fridge isn't anticompetitive because you can't install a different web browser
Unfortunately, I'm afraid if you have the vast majority of the fridge market, and you lock out development for it, you very likely will be accused of anticompetitive behavior.
> This is fundamentally different from what Apple is doing, which is simply selling a product.
Yes, that is very true it is fundamentally different and the specific part about the Android licensing is anticompetitive for those reasons and Apple would not be subject to those rulings. Many of the other software installation practices that Google/Microsoft have been ruled anticompetitive for, however, are very similar to what Apple is doing and only their smaller market share prevents the violation. But we shouldn't pretend that Apple isn't doing anything to prevent competition here, just not in the way that Google did with the most recent Android ruling. Apple does plenty to prevent competition with their platform as do most companies. To say it does nothing is wrong.
On the scale of 1-10 openness, that’s a -100
https://mobile.twitter.com/arubin/status/27808662429?lang=en
the definition of open: "mkdir android ; cd android ; repo init -u git://android.git.kernel.org/platform/manifest.git ; repo sync ; make"
In general, reasonable societies don't want all businesses subjected to fairness rules, only the ones whose unfairness can be harmful. This is because being subjected to some of these fairness rules is a hindrance to small company growth. They have chosen to use volume as a metric to determine the size at which these rules kick in. It would be tough to argue that other metrics, such as revenue, should be used to determine size because volume determines the number of people affected not cost.
In no small part, because Apple doesn't license its software to other manufacturers, and doesn't have a monopoly on mobile devices operating systems in Europe.
The EU sanctioned Microsoft for forcing manfuacturers to include Internet Explorer, even though Windows is an open platform and users could download competing browsers.